The Proof is in the Podcast Pudding

Did any of us listen to podcasts before Serial?

I was skeptical about an audio-only format, but someone rightfully told me that there was something super soothing about Sarah Koenig's voice and damn did she pick the right case to dig into. The 2022 decision to drop all charges and free Adnan Syed was the cherry on top of a really well-done project. It solidified Serial's status as the obnoxiously perfect, gold standard that every true-crime-producer-cum-investigative-journalist wants to emulate. I tend to roll my eyes at such lofty goals and focus on my pre-publication review. I am the jaded, cynical, doomsaying lawyer after all.

I was merely along for the ride when Red Marble Media, producers of countless true crime programs that I've vetted such as Evil Lives Here and Two Shallow Graves, got together with Susan Simpson to tell the story of a game of Russian roulette gone horribly wrong. Death, corruption, bad people, racism, classism, bad luck...these themes pop up constantly in my line of work. I have to be myopic in my review and analysis of the legal issues because if I focused on the rest, I'd be crying at my laptop with an unsustainable frequency (it only happened once this year on a different project).

So when the two men who had been imprisoned for 25 years on murder charges were exonerated based on evidence uncovered in the course of producing Proof and offered to the Georgia Innocence Project, I was truly shocked. It's a welcome resolution for this miscarriage of justice but I hope it doesn't change the expectations of creative executives too much.

Despite my egregious spoiler you should check out Proof and hear Jacinda and Susan make Swiss cheese out of this case.